Leeds, 2nd June 2025: Optalysys, a company enabling the future of secure computing by processing data at scale without it needing to be decrypted, has appointed Flavio Bergamaschi as Vice President of Cryptography to accelerate the development of its Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology. 

With over 25 years of experience in secure computing and cryptography, including senior roles at Intel and IBM, Flavio brings extensive experience in scaling and commercialising transformative technologies. At Intel, he served as CTO for the Datacenter Business Innovation Office, where he led the development of Intel’s Homomorphic Encryption acceleration libraries and toolkits. Most recently, he was a Principal Engineer at Intel Labs, where he led the hardware-software code-design of Intel’s HERACLES. At IBM, Flavio led the development of IBM’s open-source homomorphic encryption library and was instrumental in transitioning FHE from research to real-world applications in industries such as finance and supply chain.

At Optalysys, Flavio will lead cryptographic strategy and development to help scale the company’s Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology, which allows data to be processed without needing to be decrypted, using silicon photonics.

Nick New, CEO and Founder of Optalysys, says: “Flavio is one of the most accomplished figures in the field of FHE. His experience commercialising cutting-edge technologies at Intel and IBM aligns perfectly with our mission. As the market matures and adoption of FHE accelerates, Flavio’s expertise will be crucial in guiding our R&D and educating customers on this technology’s transformative potential. We are delighted to have him on the team.”

Flavio Bergamaschi, VP of Cryptography at Optalysys, says: “Joining Optalysys is an exciting next step. After more than a decade building FHE capabilities in global enterprises, I’m looking forward to the agility and focus of a startup dedicated to bringing this technology to market. Optalysys’ silicon photonics approach is unlike anything else in the field and holds real promise to unlock practical and scalable secure computing.”

-ENDS-

About Optalysys

Founded in Leeds, UK, Optalysys enables the future of secure computing by processing encrypted data at scale, without it being decrypted. It does this by using the power of advanced silicon photonics to enable Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a cryptographic technology to allow organisations to securely commercialise their data. Founded in 2013 by Dr. Nick New (CEO) and Robert Todd (CTO), Optalysys has raised funding from investors including Northern Gritstone, Lingotto, Verve Ventures and imec.xpand. Its most recent round was a £21m Series A in July 2023. Optalysys has developed an Innovation Lab, a secure platform for users to experiment with its prototype FHE accelerator hardware powered by silicon photonics.